2024-09-17
Three features:
1) a sustained, organized public effort making collective claims on target authorities, in short a campaign;
2) employment of combinations of the following forms of political action, the creation of associations, public meetings, vigils, rallies, demonstrations, petition drives, statements to and in public media and pamphleteering;
3) public representations of WUNC: worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment
Examples
Food riots and grain seizures
Invasions and organized poaching
Destruction of gates, machinery
Rough music/Chivaree
Forced illumination
Mock trials
Features:
Emulating or co-opting authority: mock trials and effigies
Appeals to mediating authorities: guilds, churches, village leaders make claims not classes or identity groups
Celebrations and clubs as cover: parades and festivals lend plausible deniability to contention
Localized and direct: if you don’t like the loom, you smash it.
Parochial: mostly specific to a particular culture.
On the 16th August I went to Stockport Road about eleven or a little after, and I met a great number of persons advancing toward Manchester with all the regularity of a regiment, only they had no uniform. They were all marching in file, three abreast. They had two banners with them. There were persons by the side, acting as officers and regulating the files. The order was beautiful indeed. - Francis Phillips (Manchester Merchant; 1819)
Belgium 1800-1900
| Decade | Meetings | Demonstrations | Petitions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1830s | 4 | 2 | 7 |
| 1840s | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| 1850s | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 1860s | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 1870s | 1 | 11 | 0 |
| 1880s | 0 | 59 | 0 |
| 1890s | 2 | 57 | 0 |
Sources of repertoire change in England and America
War (Seven Years war and American Revolution)
Parliamentarization (some powers go from monarch to elected representatives)
Capitalization (emergence of a new kind of wealth)
Proletarianization (peasants become wage workers)
“We are many, we are worthy and unjustly disadvantaged, we agree among ourselves, we are committed, disciplined and legal.” - Tilly 1994
WUNC displays are a defining feature of social movements
They operate by generating sympathy/support from other members of the public, rather than through direct actions. Symbolism is central.
Neat clothing, calm demeanor, emphasis on respectability or social status (mothers, clergy, soldiers)
Mothers of the Plaza De Mayo protest in Argentina
Uniform clothing or banners, coordinated chants or songs
Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement protest
Large crowd sizes, petitions with lots of signatures, social media activity
Women’s March (and Trump inauguration crowd)
Lunch counter sit in at Woolworth’s in Mississippi
Movements often act to encourage the perception of diversity, and this plays a role in generating public support
Social movements have been a consistent feature of contentious politics hundreds of years, but they’re not necessarily a permanent one.
Certain behaviors can leave the contentious repertoire through the same means that they enter it. Or take on a different cast as they become more routine or viewed as more extreme.